


ink smudges across your cheeks

by calcum



Series: the runners [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Give me a break, I just wanted an oc/oc relationship, OotP, Read at Your Own Risk, i wrote this instead of doing school, it's literally a girl who does not talk to anyone, ravenclaw is my house, slytherins are portrayed badly, so obviously this is the first house i write about, there's barely any romance, this is from a ravenclaw's pov, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3828649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcum/pseuds/calcum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a Ravenclaw by the name of Emalina Roseborough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ink smudges across your cheeks

**Author's Note:**

> All I want to read is oc/oc in the Harry Potter universe that has nothing to do with him at all, but is still faced with the backlash of Harry's choices. So I made this, and I can tell you it did not turn out as well as I expected.
> 
> I have decided I am going to make a character for each house, and maybe some of them will interact and not just stand alone. And since I'm personally a Ravenclaw, I decided I had to do a Ravenclaw first. 
> 
> I have no beta and I didn't proofread this, at all. All mistakes are my own and I only take credit for my personal characters, nothing else.

Despite popular belief, Harry Potter was not the only student with a story that seemed to start at Hogwarts.

There were Ravenclaws that hands shook during exams and minds went blank no matter how hard they studied. There were Ravenclaws that were not memorable to Harry Potter because they didn’t have wide eyes who saw the animals of death and an understanding mind or because they weren’t the girlfriend of the boy that he saw die and cried when he kissed them.  There were Ravenclaws that faded into the background and were completely normal and stuck to their studies because the world was too dark and too lost to get involved in.  It was better to read about heroes and villains instead of living in a castle where the supposed hero walked and the villain seemed to show up each year. There were Ravenclaws who couldn’t remember each of the moon’s phases or what wand movement when with what incantation, but could remember the twelve ways to calm down a homesick eleven-year-old and how to sneak into the kitchen for a friend after they had a bad breakup or received a bad test score.  There were Ravenclaws that could recite every schoolbook, but when it came to actually practicing these skills, their words were mumbled and their hands went left instead of right and up instead of down.  There were students in Ravenclaw tower that were scared of heights and slept under the covers and sang under their breath to block out the wind blowing against the high tower.  There were students trapped in Ravenclaw tower that leaned out the window wishing that they could fly, but did not know how to fly a broom. 

There was a Ravenclaw by the name of Emalina Roseborough.

She looked out Ravenclaw tower’s closed windows and watched the Quidditch games from behind the glass.  She read stories of dragons and knights and ghosts and could prove they were real and support it by just walking through the castle. She read books about magic that did not help her in her studies.  Emalina could tell you what each breed of dragon liked to eat and how Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavored Bean was made and how Bertie’s team came up with each flavor. But, this knowledge would never help Emalina in school.  She was long legs and short yellow hair and round brown eyes that were always in focus. She wore blue robes with an eagle plastered to her chest. 

The eagle meant wisdom, but Emalina did not believe anyone could measure wisdom and that someone who preached of the world ending had as much wisdom as a philosopher well versed in his or her study. But, the eagle also meant freedom. It did not mean _fighting_ for freedom; it just meant freedom. Whether or not someone who bore the eagle to their breast _fought_ for freedom or just _believed_ in freedom, it was up to the person.  Emalina lived in a world where you were either born with freedom or you pretended it didn’t bother you.  The eagle gave a choice to Emalina (and to every other Ravenclaw).  The eagle didn’t care if you chose fight or flight, as long as you did it with a heart of freedom. 

Emalina Roseborough was not born with freedom.

She had parents that wore lab coats and safety goggles more than they were normal clothes and sunglasses.  Her parents had dry hands from dealing with acids and other chemicals and from washing their hands every time they finished their experiment. She had parents who scrunched their faces up when she came home from school, came home from her tower, and told them about all the magic she learned that year.  When Professor McGonagall came when Emalina was eleven-years-old telling her and her parents about Hogwarts and magic, her parents thought it was a joke.  When family members or friends of her parents ask where their daughter goes to school, her parents laugh and say ‘oh, just some science boarding school in Scotland.’

Emalina was born without freedom in this world of magic.

She was ecstatic to leave behind the chemicals and dry hands to live in her fantasies with dragons and wise wizards. Only, when she was on the scarlet train and sat with a girl with a hard face and wide nose, another girl with neatly trimmed bangs and short hair, and a boy who was tall and dark skinned and the four of them started talking about their families. Emalina heard the stories from all three about growing up in a magical family and when she opened her mouth and said ‘my parents are chemists and were shocked when they found out I was a witch’ and the hard-faced girl narrowed her eyes and said ‘oh, you’re a mudblood then.’ 

An older boy passing by the open compartment stopped and stood in the doorway. ‘We do not use that language at Hogwarts.’ Then he turned to Emalina with a soft smile on his face and reached for her trunk above her head, “Why don’t you come with me?”

Emalina followed the boy with her brows furrowed and asked the boy with blue on his robes and an eagle on his chest what the girl had said. As they walked through the train, the boy (called Edward Haggles) told her about the derogatory term and then proceeded to tell her everything else Professor McGonagall did not. As she followed Edward into a new compartment full of people with a variety of different colors on their robes, Emalina had made her decision on what house she wanted to be in.

Now, four years later, Emalina is fifteen and Edward has left Ravenclaw tower.  He still writes and sometimes Emalina thinks she’s in love with Edward. He tells her of the freedom he has in the world and how she’ll love it once she gets out of Hogwarts. (She’s shocked that he still holds freedom in his heart without wearing the eagle on his breast.) That he’ll take her traveling and together they’ll find the meaning of life.  Emalina thinks she’s in love with Edward, the half-blood wizard that is three years older than her and had paved the way through Hogwarts for her and he will also surely pave the way through life for her. She does not remember what his voice sounds like and she sometimes forgets what he smells like. But she never forgets his sweaty palms and soft hands that engulf her tiny hands and chubby fingers. He is eighteen and she is fifteen, but love has no age, it seems.

Emalina Roseborough lost her only friend when Edward graduated last year, so now she eats her meals alone at the end of Ravenclaw table with the Slytherins at her back, facing towards the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables. It is the first night back at Hogwarts, and there is a pink woman from the ministry. Emalina wishes Edward was here because he would make fun of the woman with her. 

So, Emalina goes through her classes alone with ink smudges on her cheeks and fingertips from falling asleep reading Edward’s letters and replying to them.  He talks of the culture in India and the mountains in New Zealand and she is not only in love with him but she has fallen deeply in love with his words.  She sleeps with Edward’s letters under her pillow and she cries softly (not loud enough for Cho to hear as Cho also cries in the bed next to hers).

As it nears Christmas, Emalina catches Marietta Edgecombe and Cho Chang talking about meeting Harry Potter in the Hog’s Head. Both girls turn white and stop talking as soon as they notice Emalina standing by the door. Emalina rolls her eyes, grabs her Transfiguration book, and walks right back downstairs to the common room.

The year passes quickly.  There’s Dumbledore getting sacked, Umbridge taking over the school, some not-so-secret club that Harry Potter has pulled together, there’s the Slytherins’ trying to catch this not-so-secret club, and then there’s Umbridge intercepting owls.  Emalina could handle everything Umbridge was doing, as long as Emalina kept her head down and shoulder drawn, Umbridge was a breeze, but once she started intercepting owls, Emalina got mad.

In all of Emalina’s letters to Edward, she tells of what’s going on at Hogwarts, just to vent to someone because she doesn’t talk to anyone in this school.  Sometimes she tells of what a bad teacher is and how the Slytherins on the stupid squad keep searching her bag and pushing her around, and Edward writes back saying two more years, only two more years, and it makes her happy.  But one day, Emalina is called down to Umbridge’s office and she is given detention for speaking bad about the rules that have been put in place by Umbridge, hence insulting the Minister of Magic himself. Emalina goes back to her office that night and writes ‘I will respect authority’ over and over again until the words are carved onto her hand.  Umbridge then smiles and tells her that she is forbidden to send letters out of the castle. Emalina goes back to her dorm and cries (and this time Cho can hear it, but she ignores it, just like Emalina ignored Cho’s crying). 

Edward writes to her everyday.  He asks why she isn’t replying, what has he done. There are still ink smudges on her fingers and on her cheeks because she cries and then lays her head on the letters, stamping his words onto her face.  He never gets mad, though, Edward only seems sad.  Two weeks after her detention, Emalina tried sending a letter explaining why she couldn’t respond.  Twenty minutes later, Emalina got the same letter back with a message scrawled across the front. ‘Detention tonight, Ms. Roseborough’ is what it said. She has to write more lines and Emalina knows for certain that she will always have ‘I will respect authority’ written on her left hand for the rest of her life.

The year continues to pass, except now, Emalina talks to no one.  The letters from Edward come everyday or every other day (Emalina cries because she is a young girl in love who cannot even talk to the one she loves).  One day, Marietta runs into the room, her hands covering her face and Cho runs in shortly after her.

‘Marietta, it’s not that bad.’ Cho has tears in her eyes too, but Emalina isn’t sure if they are from sadness or anger.

‘Yes it is!’ Marietta yells back from behind the curtains surrounding her bed.

Cho closes her eyes and a single tear runs down her cheek, ‘Can I at least see if I can do anything?’

‘No one can do anything, my face is ruined!’

‘Can I try some makeup charms?  They might cover it up.’ Cho sighs and moves closer to Marietta’s bed. ‘You have to come out.’

When Marietta emerges it takes all of Emalina’s willpower not to gasp and look away.  Across her face, in big, red pimples, is the word ‘SNEAK’ and Emalina isn’t upset about the words on her left hand anymore.

‘See!’ Marietta shouts, pointing at Emalina, ‘Even Roseborough thinks they’re terrible.’

Emalina shakes her head instantly, ‘No, no! They’re not that bad.’ Cho starts using different charms to try to cover the pimples. ‘Who did this?’ Emalina asks.

‘Hermione Granger.’  Emalina’s eyes go wide. ‘I know, Prefect Granger did this to someone’s face.  It was that stupid paper I signed for Dumbledore’s Army.  Supposedly, if a teacher were told about it, this would happen to whoever’s face. It’s not my fault Umbridge was threating to sack my mother and that she had me under a truth potion.’

Marietta starts crying again, so Emalina smiles at both girls, and leaves the dormitory and sits in the common room for several hours.

The year closes quickly.  Harry Potter did something amazing and broke tons of rules by doing it, but everyone turned away because Harry Potter must have saved the world. Hermione Granger’s eyes purposely pass over the Ravenclaw table and the three fifth year girls sitting at the end of it.  Emalina has invited Cho and Marietta to sit at the end with her, because the other Ravenclaw girls the duo used to sit with laughed at Marietta’s face.  They’re not friends, but maybe they could be.

Two days before the end of term, Emalina writes to Edward and tells him everything that happened and her letter ends up being eight sheets of parchment.  She gets no reply. Suddenly, she’s on the train, sitting with Marietta Edgecombe and Cho Chang and Emalina is laughing. So is Cho and so is Marietta. The three aren’t friends yet, but it seems likely. 

When the train pulls up to the station, Emalina grabs her belongings, says goodbye to Cho and Marietta, and walks out onto the platform.  She’s pushing through the crowd, trying to get to her parents’ usual spot to pick her up, when suddenly, there’s someone whispering in her ear.  ‘Can I take these bags for you, Ms. Roseborough?’

She whips around to see Edward standing in front of her. His hair is down to his shoulder and his eyes are as bright as ever and he has scruff along his jaw. Emalina drops her bags and jumps into his open arms and she is crying into his chest and there is no way she’s letting go.

‘How about we go traveling now?’ He asks, when she pulls away. ‘I’ve already talked to your parents, they were a little wary about the whole deal, but I managed to convince them.’

‘I thought we were waiting for after I graduate?’ She asks, staring at their entwined hands.  His are warm and soft and clammy and she loves it. 

Edward smiles softly at her, ‘You-Know-Who is back, what better time than now?’

She smiles back and Emalina knows she is in love with Edward Haggles.  He is a Ravenclaw at heart, even without the eagle plastered to his chest, and he has always wanted freedom.  Edward has gone out and he has found it in its purest form.  Sometimes, Emalina thinks that she does not deserve to wear the blue robes with the eagle on her breast, but Edward was the reason she chose Ravenclaw when she was eleven-years-old because even then, she was in love with Edward Haggles. Emalina Roseborough is a Ravenclaw who’s hands shake during exams and during applying what she has read to actually performing the magic.  She can never wait for the ink to dry, and the ink is always smudged and her quills always break and she never has an extra one in her bag.  There are Ravenclaws like Emalina who keep their heads down and lips tied shut because it is better to just let the trouble bypass you.

But then there are Ravenclaws like Edward Haggles who never forgets a spell and looks out for the younger students.  Who leaves boundaries behind and goes off across the world just on a whim and comes back for the love of his life. 

The only quality all Ravenclaw’s have in common is freedom. The eagle represents it and the members either fight for it or believe in it. 

Emalina Roseborough squeezes Edward Haggle’s hands before grabbing her bags and gripping onto his arm. Without a final look around at the platform, Edward and Emalina disappear with a pop and they are off to find freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more parts to Emalina's story. I figured there will be at least two more, one for sixth year and one for seventh year. I don't know how soon that will come out, but I'll try getting around to it. School lets out in a few weeks, so everything will start coming out faster as the year slows down to the end. 
> 
> But, I hope you enjoyed this.


End file.
